Getting on with it

After June and July’s poor performance I have to catch up in order to succeed in my challenge to self for 2019 (ride 6,000k). August has been a “catching up” month. This week has been a 199 kilometre week – how could I not get the missing kilometre!!

First though I had to do more trike maintenance. On Monday’s ride we had a little incident. On a trike, the chain to and from the chainring runs through a tube in order to keep chain oil off the rider. As I rode along I noticed the upper tube, taking the chain onto the ring, had crept forward. Almost onto the chainring. The tube has ridden up before but not this far. It needs an anchor.

The trike was also fitted with a “chain gobbler” which caused some problems with chain alignment. So I decided to remove it. Let’s get the chain line simplified and correctly tensioned. I have noticed that, since fitting the smaller chainring, the derailleur is now too slack as the elements that should take up the slack are at full deployment.

So, split the chain, remove a chunk of chain, (broke another chain breaking tool doing this!), pull off the two chain tubes, remove the gobbler, fit new tubes (garden irrigation pipe from Bunnings) and anchor properly. Job done. Maybe.

After removal of the two original tubes I found that both were damaged. Sometime in the past it looks like the top tube had done the sandwich thing between chain and chainring. There were teethmarks for a considerable distance. They were under the tube so I hadn’t seen them. The lower tube had been damaged when pulled forward by the top tube as they are locked together. It must have been quite a moment for the previous owner. OK. All good now.

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Tuesday was maintenance day. Wednesday was a really crap weather day. Thursday, a short ride was snuck in. Friday, Deloraine and River Road with newly charged battery. It was very cold and I found a pair of $2 Hand Warmers to put in the woollen mitts for this ride. There was no Colin so I let the trike rip up the hills – and was still caught by the other two riders! Even with Assist Level 3 in use we couldn’t hold our own. Still, Bluey and I spun along OK on the level.

Saturday saw Colin and I ride to Evandale for lunch with Jeanette and Sue. It was a good 40k ride to add to the weekly total.

Sunday I had a surprise ride.

Sue had gone to the Evandale Markets to meet Cher and I decided to take a short ride to Cressy for a coffee. Cressy Road is not good during the week as it has no hard shoulder and a lot of truck traffic. Sunday mornings it is quieter.

I began by riding up past the Longford Tip and onto a dirt road that parallels Cressy Road.

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There is all sorts of stuff for sale. May come back tomorrow with the car.

When Marlborough Street ends we have to take a right and go down to join Cressy Road. Today there was a fair amount of Ute traffic heading to Cressy and they were all travelling fast. Probably passing through Cressy, heading for the Lakes and trout fishing. So I upped the Power Assist and sped along at 25kph in order to shorten the time on this unpleasant road.

After a coffee at the Rustic Bakery I decided to extend the ride a bit and return via the country lanes and Bishopsbourne. As I rode out of Cressy we went past the turn to Blackwood Creek. “?” I thought and then found I had taken the turn. So up to the Creek we went. That’s the nice thing about cycling – the surprise places you go. Closer to the Tiers it became windier and colder. So cold I reckoned it would have been nice to have one of Cher’s hand knitted pullovers in the bag.

Feral cats are a problem right across Australia. They grow quite large and kill a considerable number of native animals but still, this sight will upset cat lovers. Owners (if you can own a cat!) are asked to neuter them and keep them indoors, particularly at night. Some people build cat runs so the cats can go outside but not roam. Others though don’t believe their cat could possibly be a killer and their cats are uncontrolled. A subject still being hotly debated.

Between Blackwood Creek and Bracknell is a cutting. Richardson’s Cutting. The road runs up and over a hill and the cutting is at the top. The climb up looked steep as I approached but, as climbing began, it showed it was not a tough gradient. The other side though was longer and steeper (12%) and provided a really nice downhill which allowed a top speed of 49kph. Just not quite long enough to crack the 50. I had a bit of video of the climb / descent but then Shotcut software died as I tried to add it to the footage. (Later) then I got Shotcut working and eventually uploaded this footage : https://youtu.be/l9OV9ha0MVw

My version of iMovie has died. I have a problem with movie software it seems.

A few more kilometers and I was back on well known roads and returned home via Bishopsbourne. Another good ride completed.

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The bad news. the new chain tubes are vibrating noisily so I haven’t got that quite right yet. A task for the coming week!